Informational texts to accompany F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway, a World War I veteran and Midwestern transplant, settles in Long Island’s West Egg village in the summer of 1922. While there, Nick meets his extravagant neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Jay is still desperately in love with his former flame (and Nick’s cousin), Daisy Fay Buchanan, who is now married and living near Gatsby’s mansion. Nick surreptitiously arranges a meeting between Nick and Daisy and, in doing so, inserts himself in the middle of marital conflict, bizarre individual behavior, and illegal activity. The Great Gatsby exaggerates the lifestyles of the Eastern elite in the midst of the Roaring ’20s and explores ideas about community, money, greed, and individual responsibility.